


The First Day of the Rest of my Life (The Back to the Start Remix)

by navaan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), F/M, M/M, Multiverse, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Remix, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21674053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Post-Endgame Steve goes to return the Infinity Stones, finds that picking up the pieces with Peggy and getting that life he's supposed to get isn't easy when he grieves for the friend he'd loved as more than friend and who sacrificed himself and who's out there — in the past, in different universes, just not in Steve's future. But whatisin Steve's future?
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 38
Kudos: 146





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Rest of my Life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/682628) by [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan). 



> Remix of my old Avengers area Tony-centric MCU fic [Rest of my Life ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/682628).
> 
> **Has Peggy/Steve that doesn't work out and yet also works out. So be warned. Has canonical Pepper/Tony, pining Steve who never told Tony how he felt... and Endgame and all that stuff.**
> 
> It's been a tough and sad year for me with too many personal losses and I've been very depressed lately. I’ve been so under the weather mood and health-wise in fact that I didn’t even celebrate my 500th work on AO3 properly. Initially, this was supposed to be number 500, but lets_call_me_lily suggested I should do something I never did before and I thought [**Sweet Poison**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21373555) fills this spot very well. 
> 
> But despite all the sadness 500 works calls for a little celebration (even if it is sad pining Steve) and faite suggested I make it a fun writing exercise and remix one of my older fics. So, here it finally is: the remix! And now number 501 of my works posted on AO3.
> 
> Thank you takame for brainstorming and encouragement and always being there!!

If there was something Steve had been sure of — even before he’d become Captain America — then it was that he wouldn’t take death lying down. Otherwise, he would have given up long before the army even came calling.

The other thing he’d convinced himself of was that there would be no little house and picket fences waiting in his future. First he'd thought his chance at it had slipped away when he'd been frozen, then Tony had talked about building himself and Pepper a little farm and finally Steve had allowed a madman to destroy their friendship over an avoided truth.

In any case, he'd been a soldier out of time, out of a home and always that significant step away from getting the person he loved.

That one day, he might be dying on a porch of a little house with white picket fences — _that_ hadn’t _exactly_ occurred to him.

A porch.

 _Scarily appropriate_ , he thought as the ground rushed up to meet him. _The one thing that'll never work out is the last thing I see._

Gasping from pain and from being nearly ripped apart by an uncontrolled trip through time and space, he stared at his hands, too wound up by the recent battle to be totally calm yet, knees aching from crashing into the hard wood of that porch he'd glimpsed. He’d barely caught himself with his hands, before his already bruised cheek could have collected more bruises by kissing the ground.

He wasn't dying though. He was alive. Breathing.

Pain still coursed through every fiber of his being, and he remembered Loki grinning and Wanda’s vicious look as she nearly ripped him apart. 

Wanda Maximoff.

But not the one he had known.

Another darker one. 

She'd been dressed in a long vermilion dress with a blood-red cloak swinging dramatically behind her. At a glance, he'd known this Wanda had lost too much and wanted it back whatever the cost. And this Wanda who had met a Loki in possession of the Tesseract wanted more power to shape reality. 

Worse! That had been a Wanda and Loki aware of what Steve was doing with the Infinity Stones. They had seen a chance to get their hands on all stones at once through Steve and while they had failed these two were now possibly the biggest threat to the Avengers of their timeline — to Tony and Nat and a Steve who still had a chance for a better if unlikely ending.

But Steve had turned the tables by wrestling the Tesseract from Loki's hands and running. 

He would now be able to return it to where it was supposed to be.

Was it a moot point to even try and correct timelines? 

Steve couldn't tell anymore, but he knew the stones were better off written out of _his_ original timeline — and he had made the promise to bring back all Infinity Stones to the correct places in their respective timelines.

He had not planned on returning the Space Stone just to find himself with another multiverse version. What now was he supposed to do with another Tesseract? Should he return it? Where to and to whom?

First, though, he needed to scrape himself up off the floor.

Finally, he tried to sit up and groaned with the effort. All his limbs were in the right place, but he felt worse than the time he’d jumped out of an elevator shaft too many stories above ground with nothing but the shield to protect him.

Gathering his strength, he pushed himself into a half-sitting position gradually.

 _Deep breaths_ , he thought. _I can do this. Not dead yet. No broken bones. The mission isn’t completed yet either. You can’t rest yet, Steve. You owe it to them to set it right. Finish this._

Somewhere at the back of his mind, Tony was whispering: _You should try getting a life outside of this hero thing, Steve. A wise man told me not to waste my life. Don’t waste yours. You’ll see what’s important when you let yourself._

Tony had been talking about Morgan, of course.

Steve gasped as tears welled up, his throat constricted on the first muffled sob that turned into a painful cough. He couldn’t breathe; his chest hurt with the effort of getting air into his lungs. The cut on his cheek burned, and he tried not to slouch too much because his ribs were still hurting like hell.

Then he heard footsteps and for an anxious moment thought someone had followed him through time — Loki? He scrambled toward the shield lying on the porch — just beyond his grasp. Then Peggy’s voice drifted over. “Steve? Are you all right? You look half-dead.”

He let himself fall back on the ground, breathing heavily, looked up at her, felt safe enough to hold his ribs, forcing the grief back down.

With one piercing glance, she’d taken in the situation. “I knew it was too good to be true when you turned up on my doorstep after all this time.”

The doorstep she was referring to had not been this porch that first time. It had been the SHIELD base at Camp Lehigh — and he hadn’t planned on being caught there. But when Peggy had come face to face with him, recognizing him, Natasha’s voice had sounded in his ears: “You first.” And then he had remembered Tony, his daughter safely in his arms saying: “You should try it. Family’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I can’t risk this.” 

And then he had. Risked it, set it right — and died in the process.

Now here was Peggy, the woman Steve had always regretted losing — his greatest regret until he’d lost half of humanity through failure and another unreachable love to a heroic act to keep them all safe. Peggy had always been the lost love he’d enshrined in his heart and memories.

This was his second chance with Peggy. The chance he'd longed for.

And he was already letting her down.

“Wasn’t your doorstep,” he gasped. Peggy had stumbled on him in front of her office three days ago — after he’d returned the Infinity Stone Tony had taken from their vaults. A Tesseract. Another Tesseract. “I’m sorry… I’m making a mess of everything..”

“Are you?” Her heeled shoes drummed loudly against the wooden floor as she walked over to him, grabbed him by the arm, helping him to properly come to his feet. “I don’t know _what_ you’re doing, Steve. You come and go and _don’t tell me anything_.” Her brilliant smile was exactly like he remembered it — if it weren't for the hint of sorrow. Bright red lipstick and a lively spark in the deep brown gaze, “I thought I’d never see you again, Steve,” she admitted. “But here you are. And whatever kept you from coming back to me after the war… You’re not done, are you? You’re not with me yet. That’s why you keep me at arm’s length.”

Leaning on her shoulder, pulling her into a one-armed hug, marveling how this could all still be this familiar and yet so different at the same time, he hid his face in her hair. It would be so easy if he could just let it rest, stay with her and abandon the mission. If she hadn’t walked in on him when he’d returned the Tesseract, and he’d not made such a mess of things, perhaps he could have returned later... _made_ it work.

Abandoning the mission now? 

No, it wasn’t an option. Too many timelines were still going to face the same threats that they had come up against. Too many timelines needed to be nipped in the bud before they caused a ripple across time and space that would undo their victory and make Natasha’s death and Tony’s sacrifice count for nothing.

Peggy pulled out of the hug first, looking to the floor and the metal briefcase. It gave him the perfect view of her neckline that was still as he remembered it, even though her hair was highlighted by distinguished strands of silver.

This Peggy had lived her own life without him to get here, just as he had lived his to get where he was now.

Which was why he couldn’t let it go and why things weren’t falling as perfectly into place as he’d hoped. They’d changed and moved on. They knew and loved each other, but there were so many things they didn't _know_ about the other anymore.

A hint of worry flitted across her face when she leaned down to pick up the shiny metal briefcase. Quickly, she hid the emotion behind the professional blankness of the Director of SHIELD.

His heart ached seeing it.

He felt that way every time he saw the gold band on her finger, suspecting he was only complicating things for both of them by being here.

Shaking himself out of that line of thought, he stared back at his hands and tried to choose his words very carefully. He knew that everything he said, revealed, explained, would irrevocably change Peggy's future. But he remembered carrying her coffin towards the altarpiece of a church in London and… He nearly gasped as for a second everything he'd lived through for the past years came crashing down. Tears wanted to spill… for Peggy, Natasha… _Tony_. 

He gathered himself, straightened himself up. 

“I was sure I wouldn’t see you again,” he admitted. “I didn’t think there was a way to get home. There shouldn’t have been.”

He had told her that before but he had kept as much information as possible to himself. What he had lived through was her future — a potential future that he was already influencing just with his presence. 

“Is that why I can’t tell anyone that you’re alive? Your mission? It’s not over? Will it ever be over? Will we ever be able to tell people you’re back?”

It had been his only request and he had in a way known making it was a mistake. In Peggy’s place, he would also be wondering why she'd had no idea what had kept Steve away all those years, what he was running off to when she wasn’t looking. Why was SHIELD not aware? Why was Steve not telling them if he was on a mission to save the world?

In another world — another timeline — he knew he would have simply gone back to her, danced that dance, and lived out his days happily with the first love of his life. They had been perfect for each other. 

Things were more complicated now.

He still loved her with all his heart. But part of him had loved and lost again — too much to simply let it go. He owed it to friends, compatriots and those he had lost to finish this.

“You never told me what you were trying to do when you came here,” Peggy pointed out carefully. 

“I was setting something right, and in the process, I thought I could do what I should have done all this time.”

“Dance with me?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “Live the life I should have had.”

“Moving on?” she asked, and there was a hint of understated sadness and anger. Steve had seen Peggy gaze at him like that before — seconds before she’d fired bullets at a vibranium shield they hadn’t tested yet. Then she pressed her lips together. The anger gave way to understanding.“Move on? Who is she? Do I know? Is she waiting for you?”

Steve gave her a rueful smile. “No girl out there waiting for me, Peggy. I carried your picture over my heart all these years.”

Which wasn’t the _whole_ truth. She’d certainly been the only woman for him — and he’d never realized what name to put to what he still felt for Tony before it had been far too late and the man had moved on, never knowing that Steve felt something for him that wasn't friendship, exasperation or annoyance.

Peggy bit her lips — her perfect rosy-red lips, oh how he'd missed them. “That sounds so dramatically like you that I want to kiss you or hit you over the head with this stupid top-secret metal case.” 

Her gaze fell on her own delicate fingers, holding the case — and then on the ring. They had talked about it. She and her husband had separated. For the second time already. But she was still married. And she had been clear with Steve that if they were going to try, she needed more from him than secrets. She wasn’t ready to trade one complicated relationship for another without some guarantees that she was making the right choice. 

“Is this your way of…?”

“No,” he stopped her quickly. “No, this is not about you moving on, Peggy. I wasn’t there.. It's your life.” He wanted to say: “I’m glad you did. I wasn’t even supposed to meet you like this ever again and I want you to be happy.” 

“Why?”

He wanted to explain but he hadn’t come clean about most of the time travel yet, and wasn’t sure he ever should tell her. Wasn't he unfair to someone he loved yet again? He hadn’t allowed himself to move on in the future, now he was messing this up because he couldn’t let go.

His arm hurt, his cheek hurt, _looking at her_ and thinking of what he’d been through in the last few hours hurt. He'd seen Loki and Wanda, more crazed than he’d ever seen either. He’d seen Nat — alive and young and still at the beginning of her journey to redemption. He’d seen Tony — already making the first step towards Thanos, first steps to making the ultimate sacrifice, because Steve would ask him to help, to set things right.

Young.

Alive but out of Steve’s grasps forever.

Like he’d seen Peggy in that SHIELD office when he'd been on that detour to the 70s with Tony. 

Like he was seeing her now. 

He was selfish trying to fix the past he hadn’t had when thinking about the future he could never have had. Would he ever learn to let go and live with what he could have?

“What is it you do? Don’t lie! You were never any good at it anyway.” Peggy asked him right out and watched him as he sat down in one of the chairs on the porch.

To his credit, he didn’t wince.

She caught his reaction anyway, bit her lip. It made her look younger, like the Peggy he’d known — whose picture he was still carrying with him always inside a compass.

“I can’t even ask?” she asked tensely, and when he looked away, she added: “Daniel called me today, you know? He saw us in town and wanted to know if I had moved on. He saw you and me. You realize if this is ever going to be a thing, then sooner or later someone will find out. And if what you do can’t even be known by SHIELD then how am I ever going to explain? Howard will _know_ who you are, Steve... Anyone who knows your history and mine.” She paused. “I told Daniel it was nothing. That he and I should have dinner or lunch and I think I should make an effort... At least _his_ secrets are SHIELD secrets, Steve, and that I can deal with.”

She was letting him down gently.

It should have hurt.

It didn’t hurt as much as hearing the name of Howard _Stark_ and remembering the last time he’d seen the man. Not so long ago and yet in a completely different timeline — talking to Tony without even suspecting, he was talking to his grown-up son.

“Time travel,” Steve said softly, knowing he owed Peggy the truth now. “I can’t tell you much, because I don’t want to give you ideas and… make things worse. I wasn’t supposed to create new timelines at all, and then you caught me, and I… didn’t want to run anymore..”

“What?” 

Obviously, it would be hard to believe. 

He still remembered Tony’s reaction when they told them what had happened with Scott and the Quantum realm. How the idea had scared him even though he’d understood the possibility much better than any of them.

“Time travel,” Steve repeated. “I woke up from the ice 70 years after I missed our dance. And there was no way for me to return _then_ but...”

“Time travel? And then you keep me waiting all these years?” she asked. “All these years, and… You hadn’t… This was never part of your mission?”

As always, Peggy Carter was sharp enough to grasp the unspoken truths before Steve had even tried to lay it all out.

He nodded.

Haltingly, choosing his words carefully, he finally gave her what she’d been craving all this time: An explanation. The truth.

He left out details, names, and places. He didn’t talk of SHIELD, HYDRA, the Avengers. He simply let her know that something terrible had happened, something devastating, that many lives had been lost, that someone smart had found a way for them to undo it and that Steve had made it his mission to return what they had to snip from the timestream to make their final solution work.

“What is this then?” she wanted to know and tapped the case.

He finally opened the case to let her see it: a Tesseract nestled in the middle of the case.

Astonished, her eyes widened. “But it’s… it’s…”

“It’s in the vault back at camp, yes,” he agreed. Because it was precisely where he had put it, where he had watched the Space Stone reform into the Tesseract and take its place in he right time and place. 

“And yet, you have it here,” she said. 

“You can check back at camp if you don’t believe me.”

“How do I know there isn't an infinite number of these? We know next to nothing about this.”

"There should only be one in each universe. One Tesseract anyway."

She believed him, but he was sure she was going to check on the Tesseract they had anyway. He could see the gears working behind her eyes. Then she looked back up to meet his gaze.

“You have to return this?”

“This and another three power sources like it. People died to set things right and… I can’t let their sacrifice go to waste. I just can’t. It’s...” He broke off. “I made a promise.”

Arms folded, she leaned back against the banister, scrutinizing him until she nodded to herself. 

“That’s why you’re telling me now,” she said. “It’s the Valkyrie all over again, isn’t it? You’ll set the plane down in the ice again, because it’s the only thing you can do.”

She looked crushed. 

Shame gripped him. “I’m sorry. I wanted it to work. I felt I owed it to those I lost to live and… not waste it.”

Biting her lip, she shook her head. “Don’t be sorry, Steve. I don’t want you to be sorry. You came back. You let me know all this. I... “ She took a deep breath, and then moved forward, threw her arms around him, kissed him. He lost himself in it — her lips on his, her warmth, her smell. Then she pulled away to lean her brow against his. 

“Do this,” she said. “Be the hero you always were. Do what you have to do. But dance with me before you go.”

He nodded, voice failing him.

Together they walked into her living room, put the Tesseract away. It wasn't important now.

She chose the music, pulled him into the steps.

It was like he'd always imagined it, despite the pain from recent battle lingering. His cheek leaned against her hair and fit perfectly against his chest. The music led them and together they enjoyed the simple joy of being with each other. 

She kissed his cheek. “Promise me something: when you’re done,” she said, pointing at the case, her eyes filling with tears, “choose the right time and place. Don’t wait all these years to make yourself even more unhappy. If you can’t come back. If you get stuck again, find a place to fit in. Find someone to be with,” Peggy said, and her cheeks were wet. “You have such a capacity to love, Steve. Don’t be lonely forever because you think you owe it to _us_. There will always be a battle to fight, but there's only this one life you get.”

“I’m not…”

“I never knew you to be a quitter,” Peggy admonished. “You’re just too stubborn for your own good. Don’t waste your chance because you’re too stubborn.”

He tried to nod, felt wetness pooling at the corner of his eyes.

It was like he was back at a post-snap meeting, speaking about the need to take the little baby steps towards moving on, then returning to the compound to find Natasha holding things together barely. Leading the Avengers who weren't there had been Nat's way of dealing without moving on and the meetings Steve's way to provide help even though he had no idea how to take his own advice. Bruce had moved on, Thor had fallen, and Clint had gone on to do despicable things ins his grief. Out of all of them, it had been Tony, who had initially been in Nat's place after Zemo tore the Avengers apart, had been the only one who had learned to let it go and move on. 

Would Tony have ended up as he had if Steve hadn’t lied to him? If Steve hadn’t pushed him away? Would he have been worse off if Steve had realized his feelings much sooner? 

Did it matter? 

Steve had already lost him. Twice over.

And worse, he felt guilty for the way he had lured Tony into the final confrontation.

Steve could have left Tony to that life on his farm with his loved ones, but who else could have solved the time travel problem? 

And truth be told, it had been _too_ good to be a team, to be friends, to be _close again_.

They could have been like that for all these years, wasted so much time.

_I can’t waste his sacrifice. I can’t abandon the mission._

The least he could do was to make his sacrifice count for something.

Steve's mission hadn’t changed, but at some point, he would have to find out what would come after.

“I promise,” he whispered to Peggy — but in truth, he was already thinking about where to go next. They both knew this was good-bye.

And while Steve still needed to find his path, Peggy would go her way.

He caught her on the phone the next morning, talking to Daniel, suggesting they meet up for lunch in New York later that week.

She watched Steve get ready in silence.

“At least I got that dance,” he said and meant it to sound reassuring.

“Not everyone gets a second chance. You got more than one… I’m back _there_ waiting for a dance,” she pointed out with a sad smile. What she didn’t say was: _Don’t come back for this me. I am not the same person. Neither are you._

It was a fact they both hadn’t wanted to admit until now.

He tried to smile, love swelling in his heart for this woman who would forever be his first love. Despite all the years they’d missed out on, she still knew him better than most people.

Sadly, he switched on his space-time bracelet and said goodbye with a last silent salute.

As he shrank and vanished into the timestream, he had time to wonder if the knowledge that he wouldn’t return for Peggy hurt more than the understanding that for what Steve had to do next, he would come close to Tony and Natasha again and know he had already lost them.

* * *

After some consideration, he left the Tesseract on Asgard with a note to Odin to keep it safe from Loki and Thanos. Then he jumped to the same room in a different Asgard right after Rocket and Thor had visited, watched Mjölnir fly from his hand to answer the call of a Thor who hadn’t realized it was gone at all. Then the Reality Stone reverted to a swirling red mass before his eyes, and he appreciated that someone else would have to deal with it. 

He was in and out in seconds and tried not to care what would change or stay the same for the inhabitants of that reality.

* * *

The emerald green of the Time Stone glimmered, then it floated up and towards the person he’d found at the Bleeker Street brownstone. The golden necklace opened and took the gem. Above them, Chitauri ships fired blast after blast. His eyes wandered towards Stark Tower, drawn by barely contained longing.

“So, Dr. Banner kept his promise. You’re alive to return this just seconds after he left.” 

He nodded, not sure what to say, so he settled on: “Bruce sends his regards.”

“You look tired,” the woman said, “downtrodden. Not everyone got out alive?”

His eyes snapped back to her. “Not everyone, no. I hope this helps to set your reality right.”

Her smile was a shrewd and yet comforting, balm to his frayed nerves. “I am thousands of years old, Captain. I’ve seen exhaustion. I’ve seen grief. Your mind is over there.”

She pointed right towards where the Avengers were fighting their first battle against Thanos — even though they hadn't known it then. 

He blinked and swallowed, forced himself to look away. Reluctantly, he nodded. “I promised to return the stones. It’s hard to not think of the possibilities.”

“Ah,” she said and stepped towards him, put a hand on his elbow and lead him the few steps towards the banister. “It would be.”

They watched the battle together for a while, then she reached out with her hands, calling up light to shoot one of the aliens out of the sky so quickly it made him wonder if she could have helped them back then. 

“It’s been mere seconds for me since Dr. Banner left, Captain. It’s been much longer than that for you.”

“Since seeing Bruce?”

“Since you lost the people you're yearning to see. The people you’re grieving for are there and yet out of reach. I can see it in your eyes. I'm right.”

She moved her hands above her chest. The Time Stone glowed inside the eye-shaped amulet. It filled him with apprehension to see it at work. The only time he’d seen it used had been in connection with the other gems. That hadn't brought them luck.

It was time to take his leave.

“You returned the soul stone first?” she asked before he could say good-bye. She wasn’t done with him yet. 

He sighed and nodded. It had been the first unpleasant surprise on this journey.

“Returning a soul without getting one back. Not the better end of the deal,” she acknowledged gravely.

“Not the better end,” he agreed, and the word felt like ashes in his mouth. There had been no trace of Natasha.

“You’re worried? Or still grieving?”

“I don’t think I can go back to where I came from,” he admitted, remembering his conflicted feelings about Peggy, about Tony, remembered a crazed Loki standing above him, a younger and completely warped Wanda at his side. There were still things he needed to do, but after this last stone, what was there waiting in a world where he had lost everyone who was important? 

On the other hand, that insane Loki would start his journey from here. It hadn’t happened yet but it would happen through their meddling. But if he stopped it... Steve could stop Loki from getting to Wanda with the last stone, the root of all of Wanda’s power — and all her grief. He could stop it in at least one new timeline. 

If that Wanda had started out in the same universe, that was. Was it possible that she hadn’t?

Could he ask the woman before him?

He hadn’t yet put voice to the thought when the protector of the Time Stone seemed to look far beyond the houses around them, beyond the battle and said: “I am the keeper of this stone, of this Sanctum, of far more than that. We safeguard reality where it's vulnerable to forces thriving of chaos. You already know I won’t be here forever. You know my successor.”

He nodded.

“I can’t look beyond that. There are limits even for someone wielding the powers at my disposal.” 

“What are you trying to say? You can't see the future? Don't know exactly what happened?”

“The pain inside you, it lies in the past and it lies in the future and there’s no straight line from here to that same future from here. Changes are already made. And yet you stand here before me now, and can choose to go wherever you want. It is a gift.”

“I can’t waste this chance to set things right just because I want to be selfish. I don’t want to mess this multiverse up more than I already did.”

“Understandable,” she admitted and nodded. “Time is not a power you want to mess with more than necessary. But some things that seem impossible are meant to be. What’s important is what we sacrifice to keep the balance. Everything is balance.”

“You messed with time?”

Smiling at him with the edge of too much knowledge, she shook her head. “Not in the way you did. I lived a long life and I served as best as I could. But it cost me dearly to get here and to do it I did things that were forbidden — dangerous. What I had to do is worth it if I protected our reality — this multiverse.” 

He nodded. _That_ he could understand. Starting this journey, he had only been thinking of making Tony’s and Natasha's sacrifices count for something. Only bringing back the stones to where they belonged would stop anyone from trying to get them again and ensured other timestreams wouldn’t deviate enough to become a threat.

If it meant he had to keep Loki at bay now to protect what they achieved, he would do it instead of finding that life everyone wanted him to get.

 _I’m just following your lead, Tony,_ he thought. Out loud, he said: “Sometimes someone needs to sacrifice their life to keep others safe.”

“True, but sometimes remembering there’s life out there is more important than grieving. The people you are grieving for are over there, Captain.” She pointed again.

“And so is another Steve Rogers,” he reminded her. “Who doesn’t know yet what’s before him.”

“A Steve Rogers who is also grieving, isn’t he? Who hasn’t arrived yet. Who doesn’t know yet how important it is that he’s here, alive. If only he would allow himself to see and overcome his survivor's guilt.” She grinned at him, a little too impish this time to be comforting.

He echoed it with a tired smile, realizing what she was telling him.

“There are many ways to help. Many ways to arrive. Many ways to find your place in the multiverse, Captain Rogers, and not all lines need to lead straight back to the beginning or end, even though they can.”

“I’m sure you’re right, ma’am. But I have one more stone to return. I made sure the Space Stone is safe on Asgard. You and yours keep an eye on Loki if you can. His path will be different from here on out. Who knows where it leads.”

“We will be warned,” she assured him.

A Chitauri raced past them and she took it down like she had taken down the others before it, a reminder that she wielded a power he knew very little about.

“I’ll be going then,” he said and briefly gestured in the direction she had pointed him in before.

Her gaze brightened. “Take your time,’” she said. “Watching the past play out again, only few mortals have the chance to see it all for a second time. Look past the grief and cherish it.”

About to shake his head, he noticed just at that moment what she was looking at: the portal looming over New York, a shiny streak rushing towards it until it was swallowed up. Tony must have just flown the missile into the portal, come eye to eye with the army of Chitauri, putting his name forever into Thanos’ book of worthy enemies — and all that after Steve — under Loki’s influence — had told him he wasn’t the kind of guy to ever make the sacrifice play. 

He knew better now.

Unable to tear himself away, Steve stood rooted to the spot staring at the closing portal. He knew that at this moment, Natasha was waiting for an answer from Iron Man, had to close the portal before knowing he would make it out. He knew another Steve was down there, staring at the sky, hoping he would catch a glimpse of red and gold, confirming that “Stark” had survived. 

Just like he remembered, the portal started closing and at the very last second a figure appeared, tumbling towards the ground. Although he knew what to look for, he felt a massive sense of relief when he saw Iron Man fall through the portal. Relief only lasted until he remembered that Tony would die in the end — doing something eerily like this: fighting Thanos, choosing to end it and save everyone at the expense of his own life, but this time leaving behind his wife and daughter. 

The pain of the memory, the guilt that came with it, nearly drove tears into Steve's eyes. He gritted his teeth.

 _This isn’t that universe anymore_ , he thought. _Give him a fighting chance, by making sure the Mind Stone is with SHIELD._

Wouldn’t it be better if it weren’t with SHIELD, though? Wasn’t SHIELD still hatching a second HYDRA? And would HYDRA be wary of Steve in this world now that he had mentioned HYDRA to them to get the scepter? Would he get away with telling everyone he had caught eyes on Loki masquerading as Captain America?

He shook his head.

Eyes on the mission. 

_I’m not going to waste this chance. Return the one stone. Set things right. I owe it to the Tony out there to do what I must._

“Doesn’t feel like a blessing to me,” he said out loud.

She inclined her head. “That’s because you’re not giving yourself the chance to see what’s right in front of you. Strange will be like that for a while before he learns. Constrained by his pain. The friends you lost are still alive here. Go watch them. And then think of how it ended. It will reveal to you that you’re not much different but see it clearer now with the wisdom of hindsight. We all follow our chosen path — when we’re ready to choose it.”

Unwilling to find an answer to her pretty speech, he activated the device at his wrist before her last word was spoken. He heard them all though, before he shrank, and shrank, slipping into Quantum space.

The last thing he saw of her was her serene expression.

He could have sworn he heard a whispered, “Farewell and until next time,” follow him through the timestream.

He didn't need to go far. Quantum space _shook_ around him. It got hard to navigate. He could feel the Mind Stone energy singing to the last Infinity Stone he carried with him. 

Was it the Wanda who had attacked him? Was it Loki hunting for the stone?

Steve concentrated, closed his eyes…

He knew where he was going and why he had kept this one for last.

_Tony._

Steve reappeared inside the Helicarrier, conscious that he stood out like a sore thumb in his red and white Avengers time travel suit. Agents were too busy with clean-up going on all across Manhattan, marching to where they were needed. Luckily Steve knew his way around a Helicarrier these days. He dove into the next door before a SHIELD agent could catch him in the hallway.

It was easy to get to a locker room and break a few lockers to get a uniform in the right size. 

A decade had passed since that day, but Steve still knew how to get into the general comm line, how to make sure he would catch anything the Avengers had to say to each other, anything Fury would tell them. He would know where they were and what they were doing.

He could be in and out of here without anyone noticing…

More self-conscious than when he’d been sneaking around Camp Lehigh, he made sure to draw a SHIELD logo cap over his eyes and pushed into the hallway. He could have left the stone right here, of course, in the locker room.

But did he really want the likes of Hydra to find it?

 _They had their hands on it last time_ , he reminded himself. _It would be where needed to be._

Where could he leave it then without drawing attention?

His idea had been to get it back to Fury. He could also leave it in the locked room where they had kept the Captain America suit and shield for him. Would the other Steve find it there? He had returned the uniform there after the fight, hadn't he?

He remembered Tony teasing him: _That old suit design did nothing for your ass._

Despite the grief it brought up, he had to smile. _That_ had not been the reason for the change in uniform.

Keeping his head down and making sure nobody could catch a good glimpse at his face. He marched down the corridor towards the lab. 

“Cap, where are you?” a too familiar voice whispered in his ear. “Fury insisted on debriefing Stark right away, but we want to get food right after.”

Natasha.

Shawarma.

His heart clenched. 

One of his best and closest friends was up there and — they _weren’t_ that close yet. 

But it was Nat. Alive. Talking about Tony. Also alive.

His heart clenched. Today, Steve had met Tony for the first time, had argued with him, hissed at him, had fought by his side and had learned to respect him. It had been the first day of the rest of his life with the Avengers, and the first time he’d seen Tony willing to sacrifice himself to save everyone.

 _You would have done the same_ , he remembered more than thought, heard it echoed in Tony’s voice, Nat’s voice, Peggy’s voice, Fury’s voice, Bucky’s voice, Sam’s voice, the Ancient One’s voice, Strange’s voice.

He nearly gasped.

Then he grabbed the stone in his pocket and hissed a thought right at it: _Sorry. No sidetracking. You need to go where you belong and then I need to do whatever I have to keep it together._

And if he did this right, he wouldn’t even come close to Tony or Nat.

He hadn’t so much as thought it when Nat stepped out of a door and right into his path. Clint was walking beside her, smiling slightly. The last time Steve had seen Clint, he’d been with his family at Tony's funeral. Compared to that this Clint, despite all he'd been through today, looked buoyant and relaxed if worn-out.

“Cap?” Natasha asked, pushing for an answer, and it sounded in Steve’s ear through the comm system, amplified by the fact that Natasha was only feet away. 

“On my way,” another Steve answered, sounding out of breath.

“Damn heroes,” Clint said. “He won’t stop until all of New York is safe.”

“He’s on his way,” Natasha said to him and casually rammed her elbow into his side. “You were pretty heroic out there yourself, Barton.”

Clint laughed through a pained gasp. 

“I’ll bring Barton,” Natasha said, and Steve was aware that she had spotted the “agent” passing them in the hallway, was following his movements with her eyes. 

He just needed to leave the stone and be gone before this got more troublesome. Steve took the first door he saw to escape. 

He found himself in a narrow room — realized immediately he was behind a one-way mirror and the debriefing on the other side of it was being observed, perhaps recorded. 

Two young agents looked up at him. He nodded at them without giving them too good a look at his face.

Not suspecting anything, they nodded back and returned to what they were doing.

His heart sank when he looked up and saw Tony slumped in the chair in the non-descript meeting room on the other side of the mirror. Nick Fury was studying him from his place by the door. “You’re a hard man to kill.”

The words were a blow — not to Tony, to Steve. He barely kept himself from gasping, took the chair closest to him to keep his knees from buckling.

“Yeah, that's part of my charm. I've proven it's more than a publicity thing. Surviving.”

“You nearly died twice today.” It sounded as if Fury wanted to know how close it had been — in his very distant and roundabout secret agent way that Steve had never entirely gotten the hang of. 

Tears were in Steve's eyes. He wanted to sob and knew he shouldn’t. He gnashed his teeth together and folded his arms, warding himself for the rest of the scene to play out.

“Three times, actually, if you count me saving your Helicarrier. Four maybe if you count whatever it was that happened in the lobby of Stark Tower.” 

Tony sounded so damn unconcerned — like his life was expendable.

 _Not die trying would be nice,_ the older him had said but the younger one didn't have a family to care for.

Steve forced himself to look up and study Tony.

Today, with what he knew about him, he could see through the facade. This had rattled Tony. He’d come face to face with a Chitauri army in space. From today on, Thanos would haunt his thoughts. 

“Is Stark always like this?” the female agent in the room asked. 

“Like what?” another asked back. 

The woman shrugged, not sure maybe what she had expected.

“The Helicarrier wasn't a close call,” Fury countered. “You would have to tell me about what exactly happened with Loki in the lobby.”

“Fun,” Tony sing-songed. “Think it was him in the lobby?”

“Seems likely if you think everything is fine with your heart now.”

Tony weighed his head to the left and right as if he was undecided. “With an arc reactor in my chest, I’ve learned _fine_ isn’t exactly the category people will accept. But nothing is _wrong_ with it right now.”

Steve wanted to facepalm, cry, shout. Had he really let Tony nearly kill himself as their _plan of action_? What had any of them been thinking? And what man _did_ such a thing to himself?

 _The kind who dies to set things right,_ he thought.

“I'm really hungry, you know?” Tony asked Fury with the glib neutrality he displayed when his walls were up.

Fury shrugged again. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. “Then you should go eat something. I hear the team is already waiting for you. Something about eating together...”

Tony’s eyes narrowed and he said nothing.

Sure this would be the last chance he’d get to study Tony, Steve decided to commit every detail to memory.

“Good idea. Team building exercise,” Furry continued.

“Yeah. Sure. Team Building. That's me. Team player to the last,” Tony scoffed. 

Steve could tell he was thinking of what Natasha had written in the evaluation that had set the tone between him and Steve from the start. 

After a tense moment, he asked: “Why did you contact me? About the...”

Steve sat up. He had never thought about it, had just taken for granted that Fury and Tony had called the shots on it that day because a quick solution had been needed. That this question had been raised, he’d never been aware of. 

But now he wanted to hear the answer.

“I knew you'd figure out a way to get the job done. At any cost.” Fury let that sink in before adding: “Didn't expect you to fly the missile through the portal yourself.”

“Exceeding expectations,” Tony shot back flippantly. “I do that occasionally. Ask everyone who knows me.”

There was a hint of the old arrogance that could grate, but Steve now understood hid too many insecurities and barely healed over wounds, some of which Tony had carried for years and some of which had been very recent.

He wished he’d realized it back then. 

He was surprised to hear Fury say: “I'm glad we didn't lose another good man today, Stark.”

He was up on his feet even before Tony could calmly reply: “There was just no alternative. And I'm fine —” opening his arms wide — “see?”

Steve didn’t care about discovery anymore. He bolted out of the room, glad that neither Natasha nor Clint were still in the hallway. He would head to the vault with the uniform, leave the stone and jump out of here.

A tear rolled down his cheek, and he knew he would have broken down if he’d been anywhere else. He hadn’t allowed himself to grief like he needed to, and someone — Natasha probably — had warned him that someday his emotions would get the better of him if he held them bottled up for too long.

He rounded the corner, meeting nobody on the way until he ran right into a person marching the way Steve had come. 

“You!”

His own voice.

Startled, he looked up.

He wasn’t surprised when he found himself face to face with himself again — the same old uniform, this time no cowl. His younger self scowled at him, cautious and distrustful. Then he noticed that the person he thought of as impostor was not in the Captain America uniform — his mind must be racing to try and put these facts together.

“I’m not Loki,” Steve repeated his words from before, trying for a calm that he was no longer feeling. “I’m you, from further down the line. I had to borrow this.”

He took out the Mind Stone, held it up, let it shine the yellowish light, and then watched it revert into the scepter as if it had never left this time and place. They both stared at it, startled.

“I didn’t know it would do that right away,” Steve admitted. "It usually takes a moment."

His younger self stared at him, reached for the scepter as Steve held it out for him to take as non-threateningly as possible.

Reluctantly putting his hand onto the scepter, the other Steve met his eyes and then let the handle go again to take a step back. Had he been testing Steve's sincerity?

“What you said about Bucky…?”

Steve bit his lip. “Long story,” he said. “I don’t…”

“I came back in time? That’s why you had this…” His younger self pulled his own compass from his back pocket, flipped it open.

Steve nodded.

“Prove it.”

Steve pulled the compass from his pocket and held it out for the other Steve to compare them. His younger self could see it was the same picture, the same compass — but with more scratches, worn by the decade more he’d carried it.

Peggy’s smiling face had been burned into his memory. Now he also carried the painful memory of trying to make it right with her and letting her down.

The other Steve looked up from the two compasses, met his eyes sternly. “If this is true, then why aren’t you back there, getting your dance?” he asked in disbelief, the confused tragedy of his new-found life written all over his face. The agony echoed tenfold in Steve.

“Rogers, are you there?” Natasha asked into the comm system. “Stark’s out of the meeting, and we’re only waiting for you, slowpoke. Some of us are hungry.”

Steve heard her voice — vibrant and alive — and again it rattled him to the core. A piece of himself was ready to fall apart, shatter right here and _stay_ , make sure she and Tony would be the ones surviving this in the end.

He had to go now before he did something rash.

“You should be up there — with them. Make sure this,” he held up the scepter for emphasis, “is protected.”

He could see his younger self look at the scepter with a forlorn expression, than back at him. 

“I need to be here? Is that why you haven’t…”

“Look Cap,” Tony’s tired voice came over the comms this time and Steve shivered with it. It was worse than hearing Natasha energetic cheer. The reminder that today had been a rehearsal for the big showdown that Tony had _died_ in, it was all just a little too painful. “Legolas is hungry and wants to go. But it’s not a party without the whole group.”

Flippant. Friendly. 

Open for the banter Steve had enjoyed and yet only really been entirely comfortable with by the end.

His younger self was too caught up in his own bewilderment to think about anything but the anger and loss that had been consuming him back then. He didn't even notice Tony's attempt at friendly humor.

He remembered the sorceress telling him: _“There are many ways to help. Many ways to arrive. Many ways to find your place in the multiverse, Captain Rogers, and not all lines need to lead straight back to the beginning, even though they can.”_

The shattered pieces of himself fell back into place, slotting in like the missing pieces of a puzzle.

It was his choice to make.

He let the arm with the scepter sink to his side.

“It’s hard, isn’t it? We kissed her goodbye and yet we never right out told her how we felt.”

The younger Steve met his eyes again, held them. He declared: “Right now, I would give anything if I could get back to that dance. I can’t understand why we wouldn’t seize the chance.”

A calm had settled over Steve. He remembered Peggy crying for him, calling his name while he sat down the plane in the ice, remembered Tony saying, “There was just no alternative. And I'm fine,” not knowing he had started his cycle of self-sacrifice that would kill him when finally he had found a life he wouldn’t want to give up.

Steve knew why he hadn't gone back to the very beginning, why for _him_ there was no way back to Peggy. His unrequited love for Tony had festered, mingled with the guilt, become his driving force.

He wanted to be here and not botch it by waiting too long, by driving Tony away, by letting himself be driven to stupid mistakes... He wanted to try and be a good friend this time.

“We always tell ourselves we can’t be selfish,” Steve asked, “don’t we?” And the Steve in the SHIELD-designed uniform was about to nod, when Steve continued. “Sometimes we hurt people anyway with our stubborn single-mindedness. But we could turn it around.”

“What are you trying to say?” the other Steve asked cautiously. 

It was all clear to him now.

He pressed a finger to his ear, holding the gaze of the other Steve. “Tony,” he said, startling both the Steve across from him and the ‘Stark’ on the other end of the line by using the familiar first name. “The scepter resurfaced. I can’t explain it. I’ll make sure it’s stored safely and be down in a minute.”

“Roger that,” Tony replied after a moment, startled by the news as much as the name.

The other Steve looked at him wide-eyed, ready to protest that he wasn’t prepared to go rejoin the team… and then he got it.

“I’ll get you back where you need to be,” Steve explained. “I know where to spend the rest of my life now and I know where you want to spend yours.”

* * *

He stepped towards Tony, who was waiting close to the meeting room where Fury had talked to him, and Tony didn’t even look up from his phone. He was typing something, but he looked exhausted — and _young_. Last time Steve had been with Tony, there had been streaks of silver in his mop of brown hair.

“Tony,” he said to get his attention, saw the sliver of surprise at the use of his first name up close this time.

“Can we go?” Tony asked, gauging Steve's expression and posture where he stood — wearing the appropriate uniform this time but without the cowl.

He nodded, and together they started walking. 

“Listen, about what I said before...” Steve started and clapped a hand to Tony’s shoulder. This time he wanted to set things right between them from the start. Perhaps it would change things, help him keep Tony safe.

His heart beat a little faster when Tony looked at him cautiously. “Forget it. We're not talking about this. We all said things we wouldn't have said out loud if not for Loki manipulating all of us. So, I'm done with it. No more talking.”

It was typical Tony Stark behavior — trying to deflect and avoid talking about the thing that perhaps he hadn’t processed yet. But Steve remembered another Tony’s funeral and he needed to say what was in his heart to one Tony at least before it was too late: “It was a brave thing to do... The missile, I mean. I thought you were...”

“Yeah… You would've done the same. In my place, I mean.” 

That was truer than Tony could know.

He would.

He would make sure of it. 

This time he would be the one. He wouldn’t let Tony be the one to die. Steve nodded, something dark and scary passing through his eyes for a moment, before they cleared again. “I probably would,” he admitted.

“Sometimes that's just how it is,” Tony said tiredly. “Nothing more to be done.”

Steve clasped his shoulder a little harder, silently vowing to be by Tony’s side through it all this time. 

They arrived at the shawarma joint together. It was just like Steve remembered it: full of rubble, a couple cleaning best they could. The Avengers were already there, and Tony quickly talked to the owner, promised to rebuild the shop if they would just feed them now.

Exhausted, everyone slumped into their seats.

Only Steve hid a smile behind his gauntleted hand, watching Tony with the gentle happiness he’d never allowed himself before.

He wouldn’t waste this chance. Peggy would be proud. Of him — and the Steve that had gone back to meet her in another life to get his dance and build his life with her. 

His heart swelled with pride and love and tried not to show it too openly on his face. Natasha was watching him, unreadable as ever, then gave him a small nod and turned her attention back to her food.

Even that filled him with happiness.

 _This is the first day of the rest of my life all over again,_ Steve thought. _And I'm not going to waste it._


	2. Epilogue — The More Things Change

He was ready when it all came down. But their world had changed.

Steve had come clean perhaps a year after he'd taken his younger self's place and with the whole truth out about him, Thanos, the stones, about Bucky and Steve's need to help him, things had taken a different path. Tony had not been pushed into creating Ultron. On the day of their meeting, Wanda had seen too much in Steve's mind to pursue revenge. No Zemo had been able to use Steve's secrets to tear them apart — because Tony knew all of them and Zemo this time had no way of knowing.

By the time Thanos minions arrived on earth, there was a wedding band on Steve's finger and a matching one on Tony's. He still felt like a thief — but the guilt faded with time, with changes, with life.

Steve had feared this day but this time they were ready to beat the mad man before he could ever get his hands on all stones. This time, they had a whole team of Avengers from all over the globe to meet his forces.

“So?” Tony asked after they had taken over the spaceship. “We're taking the fight to him?”

“About time,” Steve said and tried not to show his worry. He knew the odds were in their favor this time — a ship full of Avengers and four stones in their own possession —, but the memory of Tony's death was edged into his mind even now.

Strange watched their interplay with an unreadable expression. “We do protect the stones at any cost.”

With a knot forming in his throat he swore he would not let it happen again.

If he had to die to save Tony, he would.

* * *

“Is this what was supposed to happen?” Tony asked.

They were watching people below them from the edge of Stark Tower, watching the fireworks and people celebrating in the streets.

He grabbed Tony's hand and squeezed it. “Does it matter? We won. No such thing as destiny,” he said. “Life is what you make it.”

“Then lets make it,” Tony said.

Steve grinned. They had talked about it.

Tony still wanted a family. Steve hadn't come all this way to keep him alive and then deny him and this time a little house with picket fences, kids playing in the garden, didn't feel like an out of reach dream anymore.

“Time to settle down,” Steve agreed, happy when Tony squeezed his fingers back and leaned up to kiss him.


End file.
